The Oversight Chairman’s behavior is beneath the committee he oversees
Today on ABC’s This Week, Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz’ continued his fawning devotion to President-Elect Donald Trump, saying that Trump is completely “exempt” from ethics laws, which Chaffetz believes excuses him from doing his job as Oversight Chairman. Instead, Chaffetz and incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus continue to go after Walter Shaub simply for doing his.
On This Week, incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus chillingly threatened the head of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), saying that “they better be careful”. These authoritarian sounding comments from the Trump Administration echo those of Chaffetz, who threatened this week to subpoena and launch a taxpayer funded witch-hunt against the OGE because of their criticism of Trump.
“Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz’ blind partisanship could not be more apparent as he continues threatening the nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics, while ignoring very serious conflicts of interest of incoming President Trump. Chaffetz’ decisions on how to use his important oversight position have been criticized by ethics experts on both sides of the aisle, and are a stain on this Republican-led Congress,” said DCCC Spokesman Tyler Law.
In case you missed it, when asked this week about President-Elect Donald Trump’s recently revealed business arrangement for the Trump Organization, and whether it still constitutes a conflict of interest, Speaker Paul Ryan panicked and passed the buck to Chaffetz. This is particularly troubling since Chaffetz again clarified today that he is not interested in doing his job as Oversight Chairman.